Reflections about Self and the World Around

Category Archives: Reflections About self

The movie began. Would it be about pen pals? Love affair? Scene after scene passed by – but it didn’t feel like a movie at all, forget about the plot.

The lead actress, the supporting actors, their setting, and props – nothing looked or felt as if it was a movie. Probably for two reasons: either I had been too conditioned about what a movie should be – perhaps I expected superheroes and sirens frolicking in fantasy land. Or, and more seriously, perhaps the movie was about something so common that it didn’t come to my notice as movie stuff.

Yes, that is what Tumhari Sulu is about: an everyday story of the woman next door, whom we meet so often, whom we mock so often, who we are so much so, that we have to be sequestered into a movie hall to spare two thoughts about.

Had I not met such Sulus myself, I would have hated the movie. Instead, I watched on. I saw the woman who waltzes through her daily mundane tasks so that others can do what they can, the woman who suspects that she *can do* [it] but has had no chance to discover quite what, the autistic education system that can sense only the academic scores, collective mediocrity, movie actors as benchmarks of performance, sprouts of warmth and belonging, striving to survive in a relationship without sunshine, the pole-vaults of assertion indenting the lows of question-less submission and compliance.

Worst of all, a toxic family.

Writers, poets, and women themselves have revealed enough about the dark realms of the in-laws. But, who talks about the refusals, denials, and put-downs that come from one’s own parents and elder siblings? Some parents sound legitimate, but they actually discriminate against one child – because one (usually the elder) is bright in a regular way, but the other (usually younger) is ‘differently able’.

Experiences like that are so historically painful that they hurt without one realizing where the pain comes from.

The movie dramatizes the story by handing Sulu a job when her husband’s job is in jeopardy, while she is asked to do what is somewhat questionable. But what about other Sulus who are stopped, questioned, criticized, assaulted, branded and stereotyped, ostracized, and punished, just because they are trying to discover who they can be? Why is their struggle laughable just because they could not discover it earlier in school? Why is their discovery any lesser because it does not involve marks in schools?

Let’ talk about it.

Tumhari Sulu is not a movie, this is a slice of life from a large percentage of women you and I meet every day – and God forbid, live with.

For the uninitiated: we all know there are four Vedas, right? Right. Each of the Vedas have four – let’s say, subsystems, or modules. Samhita, Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads.

The Sanskrit text above translates thus:

Let’s not try to find out what speech is, let’s know the speaker. Let’s not try to find out what smell is, let’s know the one who smells. Let’s not try to find out what form is, let’s know the seer… Let’s not try to find out what action is, let’s know the doer. Let’s not try to find out what pleasure and pain are, let’s know the one who knows pleasure and pain… Let’s not try to find out what mind is, let’s know the one who possesses the mind.

Yet, the way our senses and our understanding of sensory signals work, we do precisely the opposite. We smell the smell (perfume) of the flower and we claim to have smelled the flower. We taste the sweetness of honey and we say we tasted honey. We experience (some/few/one or two) qualities of a person and we say we know a person. We have experienced a bit of life and we say we have known the life. How accurate is that?

Sometimes (much more than ‘some’ times) we fall prey to stereotypes and generalizations. we seek the sweet middling tendencies, universally applicable ‘truths’ and deny the other person any deviation from that ‘normality’. Although the passage above is about knowing the Brahman, I read it in a more worldly fashion. Think about the empathy and sensitivity to the uniqueness in the other it implies.

We think that ‘scientific’ approach is superior, but that is also miserable. In the name of science and ‘systematic’ approach to creating knowledge, we get tempted to take abstractions at such higher levels that they no longer apply to the chunk of reality we have in our hands. There is nothing wrong with grand theories, but in the name of grand theories, we misplace the actual point of interaction between ourselves and what we experience. And all the while, we think that we have a universal, objective truth. We think that ‘the reality’ is objective, and one for all. We establish standards and ‘cut-off’ s of ‘normality’ and brand the deviations.

It might be fine at times, and necessary at some others. But a habit of making a conclusion at a level higher than where the experience occurs is a gross error. While we do smell the smell, we do not smell the flower. Saying that we smell a flower is a gross denial of all the parts of a flower that either do not smell or have a smell that human nose cannot register. Think of what it means when applied to our interpersonal ties with others.

Does this paragraph not knock on the doors of dynamics of leadership and interpersonal relations?? What do you say?

Fifty-three years passed by before I shopped for Gujarati pickles – the Saurashtra variety.

Studies at first, then kids, work, more ‘important’ tasks… the excuses were many. I had the resourceful mom, masi, masi-sasu and friend; there were ATHANA (Gujarati word for pickles)-enthusiasts at home and my mother-in-law loved to make them — so I simply enjoyed them. My mother-in-law never even half-jokingly alluded to that fact that I had not learned how to make them myself. Add to that the notion that it was better to eat fresh vegetables and fruit. In short, yours truly was a big zero when it came to the ability to make Athana.

Yet, on some days when Khichadi was made, I’d longingly remember the kind of Gundaa (glueberries) my mom’s grandmother used to make. Passing from her hands, they had come to my mom’s mother, and to my mother. Sometimes the thought of Dala-Garmar (the roots of Coleus Forskholli are “Garmar” and “Dala” are their stems) would flash through my mind like the sparks of memory flashing amid amnesia. But that was about it – nothing more.

This vacation, my work involves the reading of Vedic literature. Energized by reading those amazing texts in the morning, I feel ready to greet my household to pull out of it one of those several tasks that remained neglected, avoided, and buried deep at the bottom of my list of priorities – just like one of those divers who pull out the water chestnuts from some lake. What could be a better way to structure that part of the day than to liberate one entry from the to-do list?

It was in that connection that I went to buy fresh vegetables. It is not my usual job. As soon as I entered the shop, I saw the fresh, green gundaa and got hooked to them. So, I bought raw mangoes to go with them. Next to those were Garmar. The bunch of them looked like a grieving widower without Dala, so I rescued them as well. On way back, I also swooped some mustard oil, and dry chilis – a combination of Kashmiri and Reshampatto, to balance color and taste.

My MIL looked aghast with shock when I got back home. I had to reassure her that there was nothing to worry about. But MIL was her name! She also braced up and strode into the kitchen. I had already had the recipe from mom (although it was one AM her time, she outputted the whole thing without so much of a pause), and plugged some FAQs with the help of Masi and my Dilojaan friend.

Swiftly applying PERT-CPM, I initiated the project on two- or three parallel paths and began to clean Garmar, when my husband came for his tea.

“What’s this?”

“Garmar”

“What’s that?”

“For pickle”

“Ohh, the kind that Punjabis make?”

“The kind that Nagars make.”

It was just the mention of the word Nagar – my community, but much in a way that a mere scratch on a ragtag wall draws the whole lot of rubble, the word brought forth with force, the memories of my childhood, days and nights of summer vacation, grandparents, great-grandparents, mother, and much more – the way a sprout bursts out of the loose coupling of a tap with the pipe. Tears welled up in my eyes. Husband knew that sound of heavy breathing meant to pull the snot up. He pressed a silent punch on my sleeve in his bro-spirit.

I prefer to keep myself to myself. Within a moment the world outside got muted, and I began to match pace with my inner self. Preparation for pickles turned into some ancient meditation and connected me to my loved ones. Tears dried up and the smell of memories of cherished ones and cherished times began to fill my soul up.

Cutting the raw mangoes with care, arranging each piece in a matrix on a spread of cloth, making sure that no piece had the residue of the hard case of mango seed … such tiny details tuned me up with the women of my family and the qualities they had: attention to detail, finesse, and diligence began to get sprinkled over me. That I think, was the Samskara. Piercing the ears, shaving the head off, taking steps around the sacred fire are mere rituals. Things that we don’t do naturally, things that someone has to teach us, and teach us in a way that we begin to perform them without boredom and do them well – that, is Samskara, I felt. My elders must have sawn some into me, and a few of those began to sprout. In my childhood, my mother would have asked me to do many things, and I would have simply run away without ever doing them. Today, those tasks that I never learned began to pay some of the debt. The heritage of making Athana stirred from slumber.

I told my MIL, “You are not going to do anything. Just sit here, tell me ‘Do this / Don’t do this’, and supervise.” She also agreed. And we had some idle debates on which jaggery was superior and such. She said she had got the chili powder for pickles, and I said I was going to grind my own. I can be stubborn at times, so everyone ran for cover and came back to the kitchen with gingerly steps only when convinced that there was no chili discharge in the air. I also showed my appreciation by filling up the jars just as told.

Thus I was initiated today as I wet my feet in one of those many many streams of way of living in which the women of my family have become buffed to a spotless shine.

Like this:

“Make haste slowly. When you think you have arrived, press on and don’t sit down”*

Well, it was not all fun. Especially because it came in a package. To study 10 papers in Sanskrit, I studied 4 in Psychology, 2 in Gujarati, 3 in English, and 6 as Soft Skills and Foundation courses. 10:15 is not very efficient. But then, there are other considerations. Like, many of these may be complementary. And they make sense if you love the 10 part.

As far back as I remember my high school days, I had wanted to study Sanskrit. I was good as languages, and that is how I wanted to study, if at all – because I was not at all ambitious about studying. I would have been happy as a child bride, to admit it candidly. But those are perhaps crazy non-notions that you have about yourself. I guess if someone did take me in, I would have been reading and writing all day I imagine. I loved biology, but Physics and Math were not for me.

I found myself marching forth, through Commerce, into Management, and so on. Oft and again, I would remember my dream. One day, post-50, I enrolled for the Bachelor’s in Arts. While these sentiments are fresh, I note them as the lessons to myself:

Cycle (or spiral, and not a circle) and not a line: My model for the life must have been a straight line, because I sometimes regretted studying what I did and wished I had studied language. I perhaps assumed that if you come away from something, you can never go back to it. But now I think that my love for language has proven itself, I have not done so bad for myself, and now that I also studied language once again, it seemed that I could have done it before as well. So, you don’t have to move away. You come back, but at a different height.

Complementing, not competing: In fact, my previous learning made me a better vessel for absorbing the richness and beauty of Sanskrit in all of its profoundness.

Beginning, not the end: I actually think that this bachelor’s has only opened the doors of a promising future of further discovery, exploration and amazement.

Choice, not blame: It could have been easy to blame someone for why I did not study Sanskrit earlier. The reality is, my love proved itself undying, curiosity intact, and now I showed to myself that you can respect others’ wishes as well as satisfy your own will.

Doing what you love – a perfect upset: I worked for a Ph.D. later than expected, but just when I thought I had a book to my name, a doctoral degree, and the usual academic work going on, going back to a Bachelor’s was a perfect indentation to what would have otherwise been a waking slumber.

Reason, not accidents: Finally, I believe everything happens for a reason. I was meant to go to commerce college, I was meant to get an MBA, and I am glad I did. At the same time, I was meant to study my language of love, and finally I have just begun!

All, and not one: I might be thinking that I am the one studying, but it is all because the social side take a back step, mind has a new absorption, and schedule has a tendency to get rigid. Some people give way, and some hold hands. No one does nothing all by themselves.

Studies, not degrees: Lastly, this one is true for all the times. I would do something if I love it. In this case, the unfulfilled wish to study Sanskrit – degree is what fallows. I won’t say I don’t care, but that’s not the reason: I know you know it.

* Modified from Goldfrab, J. A., The Journey of a Humbled Heart: A Life Guide for the 21st Century, http://bit.ly/2oYg8mK p.85.

Like this:

Thank you, all the tests of life! You got me up to here, and now my cup brimmeth! I have arrived! Nothing is missing, and I have got all [or most] things I wanted.

Have you felt that wave, however short-lived, of warmth, joy, and may be pride swell up right through your heart and make your eyes shine and put a glowy smile on your face?

Yes, *that* precisely is the moment to shake things up a little bit.

If it is running over, or even brimming, you would be the first one to know, but wait: is that really a cup?

What if it is a trap reservoir to stop the waters from flowing?

What if it is just a fancy pound to keep all strays from wandering?

What if it is a prison with granite walls polished to perfection so it looks like china?

Have you really ever gone out of the cup to see for yourself? Not a chance if that’s the cup of life we are talking about.

In that case, it might be worth the while to shake up the cup a little.

Who knows what will happen if shaking of your cup shakes some neighboring ones also a little bit?

Who knows what would happen if the cup remains still, but you can raise some waves in it and raft yourself into some other currents?

What if nothing happens other than spilling some juices off so that your cup is ready to receive some new potion all over again?

If nothing happens, at least you can rest in confirmed peace that the only satisfaction to draw is in knowing that your cup brimmed. And it ran over. At least once.

May be the other possibilities are too risky. May be you lose life. May be you lose all you have and gain nothing valuable. May be all you get is sneering from the residents of neighboring cups who think you were a fool.

May be when you are gone, having lived as per your convictions, but not achieving anything ground-breaking, they will watch from the seats reserved but never occupied because they chose not to come for your Besna.

What matters more, though, is not whether others agree with you — but whether you agree to shake the things up a little.

The warm blanket of complacency is not going anywhere, you see, after all, complacency is complacency because of complacence.